Capitulation to Empire
Canadian Government’s Looming
Support for Son of Star Wars
by Kim Petersen

www.dissidentvoice.org
December 24,
2003

In
the mid-1980s Canadians granted a landslide electoral victory to the
oxymoronically-labeled Progressive Conservative (Tory) Party led by Brian
Mulroney. Mulroney’s victory was, arguably, more attributable to disgust
with the previous Liberal government than about any fondness for the Tory
platform. Nevertheless, it signaled the start of a hard slide to the
right. As Linda McQuaig details in her book,
The Quick and the Dead: Brian Mulroney, Big Business and the Seduction of
Canada,
the Mulroney years saw a tax transfer from the general public to corporate
Canada and the evisceration of Canada’s hitherto much vaunted social
system.

Concomitant with his business-friendly government was the pursuit of
friendly -- others would say obsequious -- ties with the US. Mulroney’s
abject support for the US invasion of Panama exemplified his government’s
acceptance of US imperialism, on which corporate Canada rode the
coattails. The signing of a so-called free pact with the US was the
cornerstone of Mulroney’s policy, which later was expanded to include
Mexico. McQuaig described the Tories as so prepared to sell out Canada to
US business interests that the US had to back off. In fact, wrote McQuaig,
“Mulroney had become so useful to the U.S. government that it was trying
to protect the Canadian Prime Minister from his own voters.”
(1) Mulroney’s popularity plummeted and seeing the writing on the wall
he stepped down to watch his party nearly wiped off the political map. The
Tories have since been merged into the banner of a new right-wing party.

To his
credit though, Mulroney did decline Canadian participation in the
imperialistic Strategic Defense Initiative more commonly referred to as
Star Wars.

After the
Tory period ended, the Liberal party again assumed power with Jean
Chrétien as prime minister. Chrétien recently stepped down and at a party
convention he crowed pridefully
at having withstood US pressure to join the so-called coalition in the
aggression of Iraq. The partisan crowd exploded in applause. While
Chrétien seizes upon the legacy of the Canadian non-participation in the
bloody imperial oil grab, the truth is that Chrétien sat on the fence
until the last minute and was forced by the weight of public opinion and
pressure from within his own party caucus to adhere to Canadian foreign
policy, which supports multilateralism. In a display of Machiavellian
duplicity Chrétien proceeded to bend to US pressure by collaborating
through the dispatch of Canadian troops to Afghanistan, thus freeing
American resources up for Iraq. Canadian warships also cruised the Persian
Gulf; Canadian troops on exchange stayed with their American units in
Iraq; Canadian officers served at operations headquarters in Qatar. The
Canadian government bent over backwards in so many other ways such as
permitting over flights through Canadian air space and supplying the US
war machine. The truth is Canada is deeply complicit in the illegal
invasion of Iraq.

Serving
as the fiscally conservative finance minister in the
Chrétien
cabinet was the man who is now Canada’s prime minister, Paul Martin.
Martin is described by his biographer as being to the right of even
Mulroney. (2)

Martin
also claims to have been opposed to the war in Iraq. It is the politically
sensible thing to say. Nonetheless, Martin seems to have curried
favor
with President Bush, providing Canadian corporations with the opportunity
to cash in on some of the Iraqi reconstruction contracts.

Martin is
so right of Mulroney that, unlike his rightist counterpart, it appears
that he will lead Canada into collaboration on the Son of Star Wars,
otherwise called the Ballistic Missile
Defense
(BMD) project.

Like
Mulroney before him, Martin is seeking a more conciliatory relationship
with the US. Good binational relationships are, in principle, a good thing
but not at the cost of a nation’s principles.

The
Canada government was unwilling to publicly declare support for the Iraqi
invasion and this irked Bush. It is suggested that Canadian participation
in the BMD might be a move to ingratiate Canada back into the good graces
of the superpower. Anticipating this McQuaig writes, “Of course, as a
sovereign country, we don’t need to make amends for not joining America’s
war.” (3)

Son of Star Wars

The Canadian
government is entering into discussions on BMD.

BMD is a
scaled down version of Star Wars, which unsuccessfully sought to establish
a space-based defense -- an umbrella against incoming missiles. BMD is a
mainly land-based version of defense whereby missiles will be launched to
intercept missiles at a safe range. The Project for the New American
Century has described the importance of BMD in maintaining a Pax
Americana.

Just how defensive BMD
is, is another question. Professor emeritus Edward Herman finds the
alleged defensive role of BMD to be “a public relations deception as the [B]MD
offers negligible protection against a remote rogue missile threat,
whereas the utility of the [B]MD as an offensive threat to any U.S. rival
would be real, as is acknowledged by military-industrial complex
officials.” (4)

And why should Canada
be overly concerned about defending itself against ballistic missiles?
After all Canada is not threatening anyone and until now doesn’t seem to
be a threatened by anyone. Since Bush launched his never-ending War on
Terrorism the US has actually exacerbated the danger of another terrorist
attack against it. By allying itself with the US, Canada is also making
itself a potential target. That this is so can be deduced from a warning,
purportedly from al Qaeda: "We tell the criminal Bush and his Arab and
Western tails -- especially Britain, Italy, Australia and Japan -- that
cars of death will not stop at Baghdad..." (5)

Former minister
responsible for war John McCallum realizes this. He admits that while now
the “ballistic missile threat to Canada is not considered to be high,” in
the future “the threat to Canada and Canadian interests could also
increase.” What kind of nonsense is this? Is Canada to commit itself to a
controversial project based on something that “could” happen?

Who is the enemy that
we are protecting ourselves from anyway?

Only a few states
possess the ability to launch intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs)
capable of reaching the US or Canada and most of these states are allies.
Russia is rebuilding and China has only a handful of ICBMs. North Korea is
rumored to have an ICBM capable of hitting Alaska but why would it bother?
It knows that this would mean instant annihilation.

Yet Martin is adamant.
"We're talking about the defence of North America. Canada has to be at the
table."

McCallum considers
“the protection of Canadians, and the defence of Canadian Forces personnel
on operations.” He declares, “The ultimate decision regarding Canada's
involvement in BMD will be based on our own national interest and on an
evaluation of what is best for Canada and Canadians.”

Sounds reasonable
depending on how the Canadian national interest is defined.

Nevertheless, so the
government logic goes, since the US is going there with or without us,
then the government “has a responsibility to protect Canada's sovereignty
and to ensure that we have a say in decisions affecting the defence of our
people

and territory.”

What kind of
sovereignty protection is it when the decision has already been made
regardless of the Canadian government’s participation or not? It sounds
more like a surrender of sovereignty.

Does it even work?

McCallum admits that
test results for BMD are “mixed.”

In defense (no pun
intended), he states, “No defensive system is 100 percent effective, but
the United States is committed to making BMD work.”

Well those “mixed”
results are that of the 17 missile interceptor tests from 1983 to 1999
only three were successful. This doesn’t augur well for the BMD. The
Patriot missile interceptor was 17 for 17 in testing but a bust in the
field.

Missile defense
analysts George Lewis, Theodore Postol, and John Pike argued that even if
the BMD functioned perfectly it could be easily overcome by a mass missile
attack or through a variety of simple countermeasures.

The scientists argue
logically, “Moreover, if [the BMD] is to be effective in countering
weapons of mass destruction, the U.S. system must work the first time it
is used. The proposed system does not even appear even close to capable of
meeting these goals.” (6)

Also if one method to
overcome the BMD is through sheer number of missiles then logically the
BMD fillips missile proliferation.

On the likelihood of
space-based weapons, McCallum articulates, “Throughout the Government's
discussions with the United States, we will re-affirm Canada's
long-standing policy of opposing the weaponization of space.”

What good is that
supposed to be? It is already acknowledged that the US will proceed with
or without Canada.

The US doesn’t share
the same concerns as Canada. The plank of US Space Command outlines the
aim of “dominating the space dimension of military operations to protect
US interests and investment. Integrating Space forces into warfighting
capabilities across the full spectrum of conflict.” It is no wonder that
the US consistently votes against any UN resolutions prohibiting
weaponization of space. US General Howell Estes maintains, “As stewards of
military space, we must be prepared to exploit the advantages of the space
medium.” (7)

BMD runs counter to
the Canadian reason proffered for avoiding the conflict in Iraq, namely,
that it negates multilateralism. The Canadian government would be damning
its own foreign policy cornerstone.

The Canadian National
Interest

Noted McCallum,
“Missile defence is one of the largest research and development programs
in the US, with an annual budget of approximately $8 billion (US). A
number of countries are currently exploring industrial cooperation with
the US.”

Revealed here is the
Canadian national interest. One need not be an astute political analyst to
know that the term national interest
refers to corporate interests. There is much money to be made for certain
industries in the pursuit of military contracts.

What is the price
Canada must pay? Martin indicated on CBC TV on Tuesday (23 December) that
Canada could help with post-war efforts in Iraq -- in essence
collaborating with occupation. The form of this collaboration wasn’t
elucidated.

With sympathy for the
US occupation, Martin said, "This is not something that one country can do
on its own, by itself. And it is [in] that degree of multilateralism where
I think that Canada can play a very, very important role." Sheesh,
Canadian multilateralism now encompasses a multilateral occupation.

Time to Mobilize
against the BMD

On January 12 and 13
of the New Year Prime Minister Martin will meet with President Bush at the
Summit of the Americas in Monterrey, Mexico. BMD is expected to be
discussed.

A media release from
Network to Oppose War and Racism - Pacte contre l'Agression, l'Intolérance
et la Xénophobie (NOWAR-PAIX) warns of the urgency to rally opposition to
the BMD. It seems that Canadian government negotiations with the US are
underway.

"Every dollar spent on
this system, either here or in the US, means less funding for the programs
Canadians really want and need," says Jessica Squires, a NOWAR-PAIX
member. "We call on Paul Martin and his new cabinet to properly represent
the desires of Canadians for peace and justice."

William Blum spoke
to the shock of other nationalities upon becoming cognizant of American
violence: “Such innocence, it must be said, is virtually a form of
insanity.”

Martin needs to
explain why Canada should be complicit in the psychotic bloodletting
of empire?

Kim Petersen
lives in Nova Scotia and is a regular contributor to Dissident Voice
newsletter. He can be reached at:
kimpetersen@gyxi.dk